


Darkness

by WichitaRed



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 09:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21051938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WichitaRed/pseuds/WichitaRed
Summary: Heading back to Wyoming from Scott's Bluff, they encounter various versions of darkness that rips the pair right down to their core.





	Darkness

Darkness

Scott's Bluff disappeared behind them as they trotted along with their saddles creaking and the tall grass brushing their boots. Passing a prairie rattler stretched across a bleached buffalo carcass, sunning itself in the warm autumn air, they chuckled, and parting gave it a wide berth.

As they rode on, the hours passing by, the blue sky churned to darkness, clouds rushing past like freight cars as the wind picked up.

"Looks like we're going to get wet," Curry grumbled, reining in to tighten his stampede string, button his coat, and pull up his collar.

Circling him, Heyes pulled his sorrel to a halt, studying the varying shades of blue in the dark sky, he too secured himself for the incoming weather. "Maybe luck will be on our side, and we’ll find shelter."

Rolling his eyes heavenward, Curry grumbled, "not now that you’ve mentioned it."

Setting their horses into a comfortable lope, they moved on. Abruptly, thunder crashed like cannon blasts echoing across the grassland, their horses startled with Heyes' releasing a sharp whicker.

"This storm pours down like it's threatening,” Curry hollered over the rising wind, “and we might not be able to cross the North Platte."

"Let's just keep pushing." Heyes shouted, "we'll see how it is when we get there."

The thunder began crashing non-stop, then with a tremendous down gust, the rain started. With each flash of lightning, the rain poured harder and harder, forcing them to slow their horses to a walk, not wanting them to slip on the greasy, wet grass. They spied a buffalo herd enjoying the rain in the distance as it washed the flies and other insects away from their patchy fur. However, for Heyes and Curry, the cold rain was quickly making them miserable.

Pushing on, they rode so close their boots would knock into each other, here and again, and just as often, they would glance to one another. Until Heyes finally said, "all we can do is keep going, Kid."

"I know, ain't nothing out here." Curry responded, then his white toothy grin appeared, “kinda hoped you’d have a better answer."

Heyes grinned back, "so was I."

To add to their misery, the howling wind had them dodging rain-soaked tumbleweeds; it was hurtling and bouncing across the prairie. When one hit Curry’s gelding in the haunches, he humped his back, kicking out his rear feet. Bouncing roughly off the saddle shoulders, Curry jerked the horse up, spinning him in a circle.

Having nearly been kicked by the horse’s outburst, Heyes irritably snapped, “what the hell’s got into him?”

Then, Curry and Heyes halted their horses, looking all around as the sound of a train running full out drowned out even the pouring rain.

"There aren't any tracks near here…. are there, Heyes?"

"No!" Heyes' responded, squinting through the rain and gulping, “ah, Hell!” For behind them, the soft grayish-green clouds left by the rains passing were forming into a funnel that stretched more than a mile across the horizon.

Snagging up their reins, they laid them on the horse's rumps, hollering "Hyah!"

Leaning low across the animal’s necks, Heyes and Curry pumped their legs against, encouraging the horse’s to greater speeds as if the most proficient posse in the West was on their trail.

An eerie, hair-raising sound expanded, and looking back under his arm, Curry felt a shudder of fear run straight through him. The funnel was spreading its way down to the ground, and when he saw it touch, it broke out in a sweat as it began sucking up soil and grass, its light gray color changing to a deep blackness. "Faster Heyes! It's heading straight for us."

Playing the ends of their reins back and forth across their horse's rumps, they hollered at the animals, and still, the twister was gaining on them. Their hats tore free, whipping and beating against them, as the stampede strings cut like garrots into the soft of their throats.

Never had they heard anything like the twister’s gurgling roar as it devoured the prairie. It was gained on them, becoming more violent. It plucked a straggling grove of Osage trees from the compact soil, their splintering death cracks sending chills down Heyes and Curry's spines. Sawing on their reins, they cut northwest, praying to race from the storm's path.

Spotting a ravine bordering a creek, Curry aimed his bay toward it with Heyes, all but glued, to his side.

The moment the horses scrambled down the bank, Heyes and Curry leapt from their saddles, twisting the horse's necks back until they buckled to the dirt. Once there, they threw themselves across their animal’s heads, pinning their huffing, frightened mounts to the ground. Fleetingly, they shared a wide-eyed, terrified look and buried their faces in their horse's manes.

At a gut-wrenching crack, Heyes, unable to stop himself, lifted his face to see a massive cottonwood tree being so bowled over, its far-reaching roots were being pulled from the ground. Then the brute was in the air, skimming not two feet above their heads. Horrified, he watched it bounce across the prairie like a rag doll before it was devoured, sucked up into by the darkness.

The water the lay in was becoming a funnel, the wind pulling at them as it did. The horses shrieked, and Heyes thought he and Kid were, most likely, doing the same as the water began shooting straight up. Once more burying his head, he clung tight, repeating. "Easy boy, easy boy," over and over until it became a chant, not sure if he was mollifying his horse or himself.

As the water shot upwards, the twister hopped the ravine, its passing mere seconds that felt like hours. Then debris was crashing about them like lethal hail until there was nothing but deafening silence.

They raised their heads, stunned at the silence, and the second their weight shifted from horses, the animals bolted up, their eyes rolling white with their muscles quivering along their frames.

Keeping a tight grip on his reins, Curry rushed Heyes, catching him up in a hug that squeezed the air from. “Thought that was it, Partner, really did."

Slapping him on the back, Heyes said, wheezed out. “Me too. If you don't let up, it might still be for me."

Releasing him, Curry jumped back, gasping “sorry."

Through his mud smeared face, Heyes’ broad dimpled smile appeared. "No, I feel the same." Releasing a laugh, he grabbed Curry up, but not just any ol’ usual laugh, but one that soothed the soul and cleansed the mind. "We survived, Kid! We survived!"

Once they were back in their saddles, they trailed along the torn path of the twister. Its destruction fascinating. Limbs straight through standing trees. Mounds of dirt appearing every couple yards where the tornado had ripped up a Buckbrush. A lone Black-Eyed Susan still standing untouched amidst churned earth. Trees dropped on their canopies, broken to shards like crystal falling from a table.

Clearing a rise, they spotted a sod and stone house, along with what might have been a barn. It was hard to be sure as the twister chewed the place up until all that remained looked like a box of spilled matches.

Kicking their horses into a run, they yanked them up so short in front of the soddy home, the big, muscled geldings threw clumps of mud into the air, sliding to a halt on their haunches.

As they jumped from their horses, before the demolished home…one of its walls having blown in with the roof tumbling down afterward. Curry called out, "Hello? Is anybody here?"

Taking up broken boards, they began digging, tossing away rocks to splash in the puddles dotting the yard, all the while hollering and hoping a person might answer.

Finally, a table's flat surface emerged, and grabbing each side; they strained, pulling until it popped free. Then placing their backs to a section of the roof, they pushed until they were grunting, veins standing out in the necks and foreheads, with tedious slowness, the roof toppled away.

Gripping his knees, Heyes took several gulps of air that became a high-pitched shocked gasp on spying a man's leg covered in mud, with a stark white bone jutting out just above the twisted ankle. Carefully they dug the man free to gently carry him to a space beyond what had been his home.

Kneeling, Heyes lightly tapped the man's cheek, "Mister? Mister?" Frowning, he leaned in, placing an ear to the man's chest. That is when he noticed the rib cage was smashed flat as an old hatbox. Closing his eyes to the sight, he listened. Sitting back on his heels, he exhaled, passing Curry a forlorn shake of his head.

Straightening, Curry eyed the house. "You think there is anyone else?"

Rushing back, they began digging again, wary now of what they might find, as they called, "Hello? Anyone?"

Suddenly, they froze, thinking they heard a cry and began digging with earnest, only to discover a shutter squeaking against the fallen wall. Releasing a frustrated growl, Curry back up, stumbling his stomach twisting into a knot as his boot came down, crushing the porcelain head of a doll wearing a cornsilk blue dress.

"Keep looking," Heyes barked, his fear for a child lying in this rubble, making him cold through and through. But Then he saw what he had been quietly praying against, a tiny hand poking out from under the potbelly stove. By all appearances, when the wall crashed in, it threw over the iron stove, trapping the child. "Kid, here! Here!"

Hastily, they cleared the wreckage, lifting the stove, revealing a tiny girl with blonde braids and blue eyes, the same color as the doll’s dress, staring unblinkingly at them. Biting hard of their lower lips, they both bowed their heads.

Ever so tenderly, Curry lifted her shattered body in his arms, feeling hot tears on his face, when from the corner of his eye, he saw another site he knew would haunt him. Softly, he said, "Heyes, the mother is over there." He nodded to the wall by the collapsed corner, "she's partially buried."

Walking out into sparkling bright sunlight, Curry laid the child down with her father. "So little, so much life ahead of her." Taking a deep breath, he smeared his tears, creating streaks across his face, and picking up a board; he went to help Heyes dig out the mother. On entering, he found Heyes searching other parts of the home. "What about the Mother?"

"Her neck is broken." Heyes sniffed hard, not looking too his partner. "Thought it best to look for others first."

Once sure there was no one else, they dug the mother free, placing her beside her family. Having found a pitchfork and shovel in the scattered debris from the barn, they dug a grave. Then, wrapping the family in quilts retrieved from their home, they laid them in the dark, wet soil together with profound tenderness.

Having filled the grave and a cross placed, they stared numbly at the dark soil until, at last, Heyes took a deep breath. "Dear Lord, what this small family ever did in your eyes to strike them down so terribly, I will…." His eyes slanted to Curry, "…we will never understand. I ask you to please offer them everlasting happiness in heaven as they have already faced Hell here. Please, let them be at peace in the hereafter." Pulling his hat from his back, where it hung by the strings, Heyes set it on his head and walked away.

Twisting the brim of his hat in his hands, Curry released a long shuddering breath that ended in "Amen." Walking after his partner, who was climbing onto his horse, he said, "Heyes?"

"Don't want to talk about it."

Nodding, Curry put his hat on, swinging into his saddle.

Heyes' sorrel was loping along the twister's path, and releasing another long breath, Curry kicked his gelding to follow.

Ahead the sky was blanketed with dark clouds; in the distance, thunder crashed. The pair rode in silence, watching the streaks of lightning rip apart the sky, no longer awed by what the storm had done, but fearing what they might come across as they trailed it. They both also knew; if it was another farm, they would stop, search for survivors, and continue doing so until the grotesque trail lead them no further, no matter how long it took.

Here and again, one of them rubbed at their face, unable to remove the image of the pale, beautiful child from their minds. As the miles passed, and they rode in silence, other dark images trailing through their minds of when they had been the size of the girl standing before dark, humped prairie soil. As the hours stretched, they continued on, hoping even praying to put this dark day behind them, while reburying the even darker day they carried inside them--yet again.

Author's Note: I know y'all have read a few different variations of tornados in my stories. I used to be a storm chaser, and I would often think how horrifying it would be to meet one on the open prairie on horseback. I suppose these thoughts keep popping up when I am writing. I hope the Twister Tales do not bore y'all none.


End file.
